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WrestleMania 5: MegaPowers Explode!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They ruined one of the great moves of all time.

You could keep Brooklyn Brawler in that Heenan Family match to keep Studd on the card and, like Andre, maximize his look/name value without exposure. That'd have been a good one for Uecker to guest commentate.

Bit surprising in hindsight that Hercules didn't get over as a babyface. He was a lot better than/more charismatic than a lot of the generic muscle guys, your Ted Arcidis and such, and the chain was cool. Certainly, more wins would've helped but that might be more on the quality of the roster then than bad booking...maybe some of the stuff that wouldve gone to Herc ended up with Dusty when he came in.
 
Kicking out and totally no selling are pretty different, though. It makes sense in the story of the Warrior match. It was just completely unnecessary with Savage, especially considering the money to still be made.
 
The WM 5 finish was just so…uninspired. It was the most basic, formulaic Hogan match finish possible. Heel hits finisher > Hogan kicks out, hulks up > Punch, punch, punch > Big boot, big legdrop > Pin.

That’s all you could come up with for a WM main event championship match that had been building for 18 months?
 
Like, he just had to move out of the way. You can hit the usual after, and in hindsight it plays into the next year's finish. There's no way Savage doesn't eat the legdrop but the trip made the destination a mess and any rematch less significant.
 
Warrior survives 6 (IIRC) big elbows and pins Savage with one boot on his chest..... Savage is champ a year later.

It'll be ok guys. The 80s wasn't false finish booking to the max.

Bruno used to beat up the heels, look down at them in disgust and walk out of the cage untouched.
 
The story of Savage/Warrior makes that make sense (Savage with the hate in his heart and both of them fighting for their career) and Warrior didn't just pop right back up to hit his finishing sequence like nothing. Hogan needlessly buried the elbow and would for the rest of his association with Savage.

Leaving a dude laying in a cage is the best but they should never have made the door even an option because that's for pussies.
 
The gate receipts up until SummerSlam suggest that it didn't matter in the long run either way

Hogan was maced and beaten with a nightstick in Oct and then immediately no sold it on the Brother Love Show in the same segment and still went on to set records with the Boss Man leading up to WrestleMania

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Hogan physics also came into play in 1990 as a butt splash in May were career threatening whereupon multiple butt splashes in August were able to be shook off as he went on to victory

Would Savage and Duggan or Savage and Dusty have set records had the big elbow been slightly stronger? This was a cartoon and Hogan was Popeye or Superman. you ride that train until the millions of dollars stop coming in for it

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Imagine the money they could have drawn in Memphis if Jerry Lawler would have just learned not to drop his strap and make them heels stronger
 
No selling a beatdown and killing a finish against your best opponent are wildly different things. It also built to something which made money and didn't actively harm the end result. The Earthquake angle made Quake and was the last worthwhile thing Hogan would do in the WWF, and again, it built towards something and wasn't a burial for no reason.

You seem to be thinking I'm saying Savage should go over, which isn't the case. The issue is the finish went out of its way to hurt Savage, which definitely hurt the rematch potential because Savage wasn't a threat anymore. It's bad storytelling and hurt the future drawing potential, which considering how well they did is insane when they could've done even more. They kneecapped the feud in its second act.
 
They were never gonna continue this feud anyway though, it was stopped in its tracks due to hogan needing to promote no holds barred. There were only two ppvs left in the year and both of them had the wwe wanting to pair Hogan with Zeus. By the time 1990 rolled around, the wwe was already all in on the warrior. Matching hogan and savage past that point would have needed a rebuild anyway with all the time that had gone by.
 
House shows, though. Let alone as a bridge to Zeus.
 
House show tours were bigger than premium lives then (plus they existed!). There would be 3 ppvs later in 89, including No Hold Barred, and Savage was a tag opponent of Hogan in 2 of them. They also did a Main Event on tv in early 1990 with Buster Douglas, who'd just upset Tyson (the orginal ref for Hogan-Savage). They did a European tour. Not a great time to turn one of your main eventer's most popular finishing moves into reverse kryptonite. Don't kill your best moves, don't kill off cities.

Hogan did this again in 1995 with Vader. The powerbomb was medicinal on TV. License to print money was, again, revoked in favor of a man's feelings.
 

They mention Downey runs up the aisle after Piper and has to be cut off by Pat Patterson. I probably haven't watched this segment since Piper's DVD came out forever ago and I don't recall this off hand. (Watching as a kid, I didn't even know who Patterson was)

I know Downey was wearing the jacket to promote his brand (I think he'd wear it on the MDJ show too?) but I wonder if he had pads on underneath since he was taking a bump?

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Listening to them shit on Andre vs Jake had my rebooking mind going again.
BruiserBrody said:
Card could be helped by combining the Heenan haters into a six man (Rooster, Hercules and Jake the Snake vs Heenan, Haku and Andre.

That would be better if Rooster denounces the gimmick once he turns on Heenan. Bland Taylor has to have a better chance than goofy gimmick Taylor? But that wouldn't let the bookers make fun of Flair's strutting and/or put Taylor in line for having self confidence.

You can add to angle by announcing the match as Andre/Haku/Brawler only for Tunney to decree after reviewing Brawler attacking Monsoon with a stool, Brawler will avoid suspension but he will be penalzed by being removed from Wrestlemania and any payoffs that would come with it - oh and Bobby Heenan will be his replacement or face the same financial penalty for his role in the incident with Taylor/Monsoon and the Brawler.
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Even with the roster bloat, they are a solid heel or 2 away from a proper rebooked card.

I'm combining Beefcake/Rockers vs Dibiase/Twin Towers to play off Dibiase buying the number 30 off Slick, and then Beefer being one of the victim's of the Twin Towers reign of terror in the match.

Studd/Jake vs Andre/Haku to save that match from boredom. (By adding more slugs??)

Herc instead gets Bad News Brown, to drag out the Dibiase stuff a little more as Dibiase bribes News to go finish off the Herc and the announcers can put over the hypocrisy of Bad News railing against "beer bellied share croppers" while trying to help a rich guy enslave another.

Duggan works a quickie squash vs Frenchy Martin to blow off this round of the Bravo/Duggan feud and wipe Martin out of the WWF.
 
Those things make sense and, overall, could improve the show. Hercules vs Bad News could be better (or maybe worse) than the real match with Duggan but your idea has more story behind it. And Bad News had been the #1 world title contender before the Mega Powers exploded so he deserved something bigger than a nothing match with Hacksaw (who, as you suggest, should just go over someone even if it's not a big name).

I wish they gave Perfect-Blazer more time. A longer match gives both a little more shine. But, if they also tell them this beforehand, maybe Perfect lays off the blow until later so he's not botching stairs before the thing even starts.
 
Did it air or was it a phantom promo?

I don't think that needed any seeds planted. An unexpected turn can be good and not necessarily the same thing as a manufactured swerve or whatever. The injury via Demolition is a good enough set up...all that time on the shelf is time for a person to think (about gigantic perfume sprayers, for example).

My only gripe now with that match is that it really should be historically bigger. More significant. This was two main event tag teams with Strike Force returning to Wrestlemania a year after their run with the belts ended. It should've been remembered as big a deal as Anderson/Blanchard-Luger/Windham the year before; bigger because it was Wrestlemania and WWF. Not sure why that (a lot of WM 5, really) was never mythologized like they did so much of their product. The looooong Tito-Model feud that never really got the TV time, angles, or blowoff it deserved didn't help the legacy either.
 
I haven't heard the promo itself yet, but it is on one of the Wrestling Memory Grenade's pods in the Mania 5 build I am currently digging through. I am several behind.

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A funny visual from another promo is Hogan defending the "lust in his eyes" stuff by saying it wasn't lust, Hogan was just so into the Mega Powers concept he wished he could be on Macho's other shoulder.
 
Just caught the promo. It's on during a Wrestling Challenge Tito vs Jose Estrada squash.
"Wrestlemania is the biggest showcase in wrestling, that being said I wanted a singles match, but I will give this tag match 100 percent" was essentially it.

Heenan then needled Gorilla that it looks like Strike Force may have issues heading into their match with his men.

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I was more tickled than I should have been to see a Rooster vs Hennig match as a Superstars feature match. That means those 2 had at least 4 widely seen TV matches from July 88- fall of 89 without a feud.
 
Goofy to do something like that on just one TV show. Maybe it re-aired on Prime Time.

Martel recently did a big signing/meet & greet and it looks like it was a big success (and he looked happy with everything). He doesn't do those things often so it was a bigger deal than a lot of the bigger names.
 
There are some pics and videos of people meeting him while cosplaying as the Model, and he freaking loved it. So fun.
 
Was he delusional thinking it was still 2 years earlier and the Harts were his underlings vs Macho Man and Elizabeth?
 
snuffbox said:
Was he delusional thinking it was still 2 years earlier and the Harts were his underlings vs Macho Man and Elizabeth?
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I can guess he argued he did jobs around the horn for Warrior on B-shows so he was due for a rebuild. Plus the Harts had bested Jimmy at Rumble so Jimmy could get some heat back by getting Honky a vintage screwy win.

His complaints (if they happened) earned him a SNME main event at least.
 
I was thinking of a fun alternative to get us to Herc vs Dibiase here.

The Heenan thing goes down at the same time, but instead of the "slave" verbiage, Herc is a mercenary under Dibiase's money rule. "Virgil is my body guard and Hercules is my hired gun!"

So Herc helps Dibiase cheat to win some PTW and SNME level matches. They are both on the heel side at the Survivor Series main event. Herc puts on a hot start and eliminates Koko. A bit later Dibiase orders him to use his chain on Savage, trading the DQ for leaving the World champ in a bad place for Dibiase to defeat. Herc is reluctant and the announcers put over Herc wanting to share the glory of surviving, not heading to the locker room early. After some dollar bills are flashed, the deed is done, but the seed of dissent is planted.

Leading to the Rumble, Herc is once again aiding Dibiase in some cheap wins. Dibiase even stops doing jobber matches and makes Herc wrestle in his place. Finally at the Rumble, Ted pays for the 30 slot and Herc is still in. It comes down to Akeem, Ted, Herc and BJ Studd. The heels all gang up on Studd and after some solid efforts, Studd manages to dump Akeem, but is grabbed by Herc and Dibiase and dumped from behind. Ted then orders Herc to toss himself. Herc pauses and milks the moment. Ted insists. Then Virgil busts out the money. Herc looks at it and the crowd. Then Ted gets too pushy physically and Herc shoves back Dibiase's arm. Ted sticks his finger in Herc's face, which prompts Herc to blast him with a series of jabs and sends him over the top for the win.
 
That's much better. They could've gotten a lot more out of Hercules. And, knowing what we do now about Studd's health and longevity, putting Hercules over like that on the first ppv Rumble would've led to so many more and better things. Of course, even if he had more years of wrestling left in the tank, trying for Big John Studd: babyface was a goofy line of thought to begin with.
 
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